Jerry Fiddler, one of the founders of Windriver systems which makes embedded technology, stands in his Alameda office with a replica of a X38 plane that uses their embedded technology. Photo by Gina Gayle/The SF Chronicle.

Photo: GINA GAYLE

Jerry Fiddler, one of the founders of Windriver systems which makes...

As young men in the 1960s, David Wilner and Jerry Fiddler opposed the war in Vietnam and embraced their generation's critical view of the U.S. military.

But today, the technology they helped develop in the 1970s has been embraced by the U.S. armed forces and is being used in the military campaign in Iraq.

Wind River Systems of Alameda, the company they co-founded in a Berkeley garage in 1981, has provided technology that helps detect chemical weapons, makes communications systems more reliable and even guides U.S. bombs to specific enemy targets.

The journey of these two businessmen underscores the quandary faced by other veterans of the 1960s anti-war movement who later became Silicon Valley technologists and entrepreneurs and who found themselves having the U.S. military as a key customer.

Their story also points to the Bay Area's split personality over the war in Iraq: The region is both a center of anti-war protest and the technology mecca that is helping U.S. forces to become a more powerful fighting machine.

That ambivalence over the war is apparent in Wilner and Fiddler's views on the current conflict.

Wilner left Wind River about four years ago and declined to comment on the company's current policies and customers, which include U.S. military and space agencies.

But he opposes the invasion of Iraq and has even joined one of the marches to protest the campaign.

"I hope to God this is over very soon," he said. "Of course, I'm opposed to a senseless war in which people are going to die. We're alienating the whole world. I think that's completely wrong."

Fiddler, now the company's chairman, declined to state his position on the war, but he offered a

more positive view of the U.S. armed forces.

"This war is a catalyst that is shining light on a military that is always strong and present and here for one reason -- to keep us safe," he said in an e-mail.

"The world today is a safer place because of American military capabilities.

We've seen those capabilities used to end conflict recently in Kosovo, Bosnia,

Rwanda and elsewhere. We owe a debt to our soldiers."

About 30 years ago, the Vietnam War "colored the perception of a whole generation toward what the military was and what it was doing at that time," Fiddler said.

During the Vietnam War, critics had accused the U.S. military of committing atrocities and using its technological advantage in a campaign that killed innocent civilians and damaged the environment.

INTERNET PIONEER

Among those who became disillusioned was Bob Taylor, who headed the Defense Department team that built the computer network that was the precursor to the Internet. During several visits to Vietnam, he concluded that the United States had no business being there.

"I discovered that it was a civil war," he said. "The amount of ignorance displayed by high (U.S.) officials was appalling and very discouraging."

Fiddler and Wilner were also highly critical of the military as well as passionate about technology.

Like other technology pioneers, they formed Wind River hoping to make a difference -- and they succeeded.

Today, computer systems that he and Wilner developed -- called embedded technology -- have helped create safer and more efficient medical equipment, transportation systems and communication networks.

They were part of an industry that has long been dominated by more conservative engineers and entrepreneurs who had a more favorable view of the military.

Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor, has been an institution in Silicon Valley. Hewlett-Packard co-founder Dave Packard, one of the region's most revered figures, served as deputy secretary of defense in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But having the military for a customer made many Wind River executives and employees, particularly former anti-Vietnam War activists, uncomfortable, Wilner said.

He recalled one employee who took a call from a defense contractor who had a question. The employee said, "I'm sorry. I don't believe in what you do, and I can't answer your question," then hung up.

"All of a sudden, we found ourselves getting orders from these people we had just been protesting," Wilner said. "We were always torn between the economic realities and the moral issues. I always wished we were a Ben & Jerry kind of company in an innocuous industry where you can take a moral stand."

The financial pressures of the tech industry eventually prevailed, and the company did do more business with the defense establishment, Wilner said.

"To some extent, I won't deny that there might have been some hypocrisy," he said. "We had investors and stockholders, and there would be this huge crushing pressure to make the numbers. If part of this was a big sale to a military customer it was almost a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, which was clearly hypocritical."

END OF THE COLD WAR

The debate over the use of technology in warfare went away temporarily when the Cold War ended and defense spending declined, he said. But it has reemerged since the Sept. 11 attacks and the new focus on homeland security and building a stronger military.

Most of Wind River's contracts involve nonmilitary projects in automotive, consumer, industrial manufacturing and other markets, the company said. But Fiddler stressed that with the help of Wind River technology, the U.S. military can wage war that's less bloody.

"The fact that the battles of today are about information more than about bigger bombs will make war less destructive to most people," he said. "It certainly makes it possible and likely that there's less harm to innocent bystanders. As much as everyone hates war, I think the world is better because our technology exists."

In his e-mail, Fiddler added: "My father's generation fought a huge war with massive casualties and disruption. My generation fought a war with carpet bombing, napalm, land mines and booby traps. Today, we're able to fight a war with drone aircraft, communications, sensors and other protective equipment, and precise munitions that damage as small an area as possible."

Other technologists who also came from the anti-Vietnam War movement have a darker view of the conflict with Iraq.

Lee Felsenstein, who invented the Osborne 1, the world's first portable computer, blasted what he called the political decadence behind the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq.

David King, who had worked as an engineer in Palo Alto, said he could not understand the Bush administration's reason for waging war, which he said brings back many of the emotions and disputes in the 1960s.

"There are so many reminders of Vietnam in the last few weeks," he said.

As veterans of the technology industry, both King and Felsenstein also acknowledged that it is hard for any company to avoid dealing with the military.

As an engineer in the 1980s for Teknowledge, a Palo Alto software firm that has signed contracts with the Department of Defense, King said he asked not to be assigned to federal contracts that required security clearances.

However, it's almost impossible for engineers and technologists to control the direction of their work, he said.

"I would not want to work on a project to make a smart bomb because there seems little advantage there but to do greater damage," he said.

Still, "it's very difficult to help a technology be deployed for the best reasons without inadvertently being deployed for poor reasons," he said.

"NASA wanted it because they wanted a vehicle to send to Mars," he said. "DOD wanted it because they wanted an autonomous tank and stick in a battlefield environment.

"They funded it jointly, and they used our software to do it. It's impossible to say, 'Gee, we like it for the space part, But we don't like it for the defense part.' . . . You quickly realize that there's no bright line that you can cut."

COMPROMISES

Felsenstein said that "to be personally pure, I would have to give up making money. You have to make compromises to live in this society, but you always have to keep your eye on the future."

He has tried to do just that by helping build the first human-powered computer linking a village in Laos to the Internet by wireless remote.

Wilner himself left Wind River to pursue other interests, but he and Fiddler remain friends. Wilner also formed a foundation with his wife, Malou Babilonia, devoted to social and environmental issues.

Taylor, the technology pioneer who helped launch the Internet, opposes the war with Iraq. But in the debate over the use of technology in warfare, he said, the focus should not solely be on the armed forces, but on the country's political leadership.

"The problem is not whether or not technology should support the military," he said. "We need a strong military. . . . The problem is what the government leaders choose to do with the military and the military's technology."